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Five Faves Of '17: Training Camp Mic'd Up

Now that the season has come to a close, the Redskins Blog will select its favorite things from Redskins fans, players, coaches and team personnel over the last 12 months.

We’ll continue with our five favorite players and coaches mic'd up during training camp.

1. The Kirk Cousins

The Redskins know what they have in Kirk Cousins – as a quarterback, sure, but also as a man of eclectic tastes. That’s evident in this montage video of his mic’d up session as he warms up “the old soup bone” and makes fun of his offensive linemen for looking like “Hogs 1.0.” In this informative and hilarious day at camp, Cousins explains that he once met Brandon Jacobs at an Atlanta Lifetime Fitness, that the recipe for good water is two hydrogens and one oxygen (what’s the recipe for bad water?) and that his favorite band is Switchfoot. Also, enough with the Creed jokes. Kirk only liked the band in seventh grade.

- Creed was good "in like 7th grade."- Formula for high-quality H2O- Dickinson was a great poet.

Running backs coach Randy Jordan says more than just these few words, but he does say them a lot. Which is to say, he’s about as supportive as it gets. This would serve to be beneficial throughout a year that saw nine running backs make the active roster. Jordan gets animated near the end and it’s hard not to want to suit up and play for him, if only to hear some positive feedback.

Safety D.J. Swearinger added most of the noise heard at training camp this year. The vocal leader of the team led huddles and barked at offensive players, stirring up the intensity when practice sessions felt flat. That's on display near the end of this mic’d up session, when he gets in the face of wide receiver Zach Pascal and tight end Niles Paul. The joy he has chirping at others causes him to tell his teammates to “play like we blessed.” You never have to worry about D.J. forgetting to do that.

Head coach Jay Gruden doesn’t have too many personal chats with players on the particular day he was wired up, but he does have some fun interactions with fans after the practice session is over. “Enjoy the fans, man, they come out a long way away, they cheer you guys on, they taunt you, they boo you, they love you, they hate you, but give them a nice autograph and a picture and a selfie,” he tells his players as they break the huddle. It’s also fun to hear Gruden’s voice change from casual chat to gravelly yell as he watches receivers get loose.

Contrary to popular belief, cornerback Josh Norman isn’t a huge talker on the field. He leaves that for Swearinger and the linebackers on the defense that call out the plays. He does enjoy the occasional chat during stretches, like the one he shares with Kirk Cousins. “You guys are going to fail,” he tells Cousins about his two-minute offense. He’s also still bruised from Cousins’s sneaky photo of him sleeping with his mouth open. “Payback is coming,” Norman says with a laugh. The next part of practice is mostly the microphone picking up sounds of physical contact, a nice preview of what was to come during Norman’s second season with the team.